Alive? Check

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After much introspection, I have come to the opinion that being retired I have fallen into a series of daily routines that, although not noticed by me (at least initially) caused some concern on the part of family members, friends and neighbors. Being an early riser (late for me is an anything past 4 a.m.) my first conscious actions of the morning are to fire up the old coffee maker and open up the laptop to peruse the early web editions of our local newspapers. The first thing I will do is quickly scan that day’s Irish Comics (obituaries) to assure myself that I have not been included with the recently departed. This is a fairly quick undertaking (pun intended) as all the deceased listed have apparently been gracious enough to die in alphabetical order.

Satisfied that I still remain among the living and armed with my first cup of coffee my next agenda item for that day is to check the news to ascertain what the media is touting as the current apocalyptic disease that may bring about my demise this week. As of late the Zika virus tops this list but it has been preceded by others such as Ebola, Sars, West Nile, Necrotizing Fasciitis (the flesh eating disease), Lyme disease, etc...all maladies which, thus far in my life, I have been able to either avoid or otherwise keep at bay. The media coverage of these illnesses is, in my opinion, much ado about nothing. I mean, come on, we've all seen the Walking Dead right? Now a zombie virus would make me sit up straight and pay attention.

Moving right along, it's time to check the political news of the day. The 2016 Presidential election is just around the corner and I believe I have a personal responsibility to obtain all available information about each candidate and to make an informed decision about how to vote. This morning's news informs me that Donald Trump is a loud mouthed, racist, misogynistic moron who, according to some pundits, is distantly related to Adolph Hitler and poses a dire threat to the very fabric of our nation. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton is purported to be an embittered old lady in failing health and a pathological liar whose every utterance is apparently a falsehood and poses a dire threat to the fabric of our nation. Wow! Tough choice! I guess I will have to continue doing my research prior to pulling the lever on November 8.

My political due diligence done, I then turn to the politically correct issue of the day in order that I may go about my daily business in society without fear of offending anyone. A few weeks ago the media was all abuzz about the great bathroom kerfuffle regarding gender neutral bathrooms. As the father of two young adult daughters I felt it important to show both of them that, in addition to being a Dad, I was also a caring, sensitive cisgender male so I marked every bathroom door in our house with the letters "WC" as they do in Great Britain and then proudly announced to the family "All our bathrooms are now gender neutral!" My oldest daughter Amy looked at me as if I had two heads and stated, "You do know that ‘WC over in England stands for water closet, don't you?" I replied, who cares what it means in London, in this house it stands for "Who Cares?"